Abstract

Experiences in Andean countries reveal that constitutional recognition of plural rights systems is not enough to reduce the detrimental impacts of hydropower on Indigenous communities. In this article, critical legal pluralism serves as an entry point from which to raise questions about the formal recognition of Indigenous legal orders in Chile. Drawing from an hydroelectic project that would dam the Neltume lake, this study examines how to take diverse local water rights systems seriously, without wiping them out by equilizing their divergences with logically ordered, hierarchically differentiated, official law. Accordingly, it shows how a series of legal networks overlap, intersect, and mutually shape each other, as it relates to struggles over water control in Mapuche-Williche territories. Through an ongoing engagement with critical anthropological thought, the article ends by addressing how it can be challenging to translate Indigenous epistemologies and political identities into the most official of all state documents, namely, the Constitution. Considering the present-day constitution-making process in Chile, the research combines several techniques for gathering qualitative data, including in-depth interviews with respondents involved in the conflict, videography, document analysis, and secondary historical sources.

摘要

安第斯国家的经验表明，宪法承认多元权利制度不足以减少水电对土著社区的不利影响。在本文中，批判性法律多元主义作为一个切入点，提出有关智利土著法律秩序的正式承认的问题。本研究借鉴了一个将在 Neltume 湖筑坝的水电项目，探讨了如何认真对待不同的地方水权系统，而不是通过用逻辑有序、等级分化的官方法律来平衡它们的分歧来消除它们。因此，它展示了一系列法律网络如何重叠、交叉和相互塑造，因为它与马普切-威利切地区的水资源控制斗争有关。通过对批判性人类学思想的持续参与，本文最后讨论了如何将土著认识论和政治身份转化为所有国家文件中最官方的文件，即宪法是如何具有挑战性的。考虑到智利当今的宪法制定过程，该研究结合了几种收集定性数据的技术，包括对参与冲突的受访者的深入访谈、录像、文件分析和二手历史资料。